Confessions Of A Suffering Jets Fan: Week 1, Pt 1.
Unleashing my inner fan every single week...
Where do I even begin?
This will go down as one of the weirdest, toughest, most surreal and most heartbreaking weeks in the messed-up, tortured life of a long-suffering Jets fan.
It will go down as one of the most typical weeks, too.
We just aren’t allowed nice things, are we? And I’m speaking for all New York Sports fans here.
In a year where the Yankees and the Mets have both been dumpster fires, and the night after the Giants laid a Godzilla-sized egg, maybe we as Jets fans shouldn’t have been surprised by what transpired on Monday night.
We should have seen it coming.
After all, I know I can’t be the only one that has been battling with a little voice inside my head that has been telling me for months that this was all going to end in tears. That all of our hopes and dreams were going to be crushed without a second thought.
That’s the price of doing business when you are a Jets fan.
However, it was all too easy to get swept up in the romance of it all.
We’ve waited years for a legit, future Hall of Fame quarterback to ride into town and carry our bruised and battered franchise to new, unscaled heights. Many have literally waited decades for the second coming of Joe Namath.
That was supposed to be Aaron Rodgers.
And, for a couple of glorious, heavenly months at least, we could all dream wonderful dreams about the glory days on the horizon.
Rodgers, for all of his critics, for all of his detractors, resembled a man reborn in New York. He was revitalized by chasing the seemingly impossible dream of bringing a Super Bowl to New York.
He was the star of Hard Knocks. He became the darling of the New York media over night. He made every single right move and his start to life as a New York Jet couldn’t have been scripted any more perfectly.
Of course, Rodgers was brought to town for one thing and that was to help this team on the rise compete for a championship. That’s all that mattered to Jets fans.
That’s why MetLife Stadium was the ultimate destination for literally everybody on the first Monday Night Football of the 2023 season. Justin Timberlake was present. Kevin from The Office was there. Edie Falco was seen too, paying the ultimate tribute to her TV husband, the late and great James Gandolfini who was a massive Jets fan.
As if the excitement levels weren’t through the roof already, Rodgers made an entrance fit for a King. As part of the pregame ceremony to remember those we lost on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, Rodgers ran out to the middle of MetLife Stadium with the American Flag draped over his shoulder.
It was an awesome, emotional and unforgettable moment, one that solidified the ironclad bond already forged between Rodgers and Jets fans.
This was it. Our moment had finally arrived. We were ready to be relevant again. We were ready to embrace the good times and sit back and watch in awe as Rodgers cemented his Hall of Fame legacy by leading the Jets to ultimate glory.
We were ready for Rodgers to hand Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills an absolute ass-whooping to officially declare that the New York Football Jets were finally back.
Then it happened.
Ultimate disaster struck.
Four snaps. Four lousy plays - or 75 seconds to be more precise - was all it took for our hearts to be ripped out of our chest, stamped on, and then ravaged into a million tiny pieces.
Four snaps into his Jets career, without even completing one damn single throw, Rodgers’ 2023 season was over. And, God forbid, maybe his career.
Sacked by Buffalo’s Leonard Floyd, Rodgers suffered a torn left Achilles and was carted off the field, taking the hopes and dreams of every single Jets fan with him.
Even writing this now, it still doesn’t seem real. Like, how could this have happened?!
Why us? WTF? JUST WHY?!
It was like an out-of-body experience watching Rodgers slump back down to the turf. Watching it back, his face told you just how bad it was.
Remember that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Carl committed suicide because of the Jets - it was the one that featured the certain magical body part that Larry and Leon obsessed over, just in case you needed another hint - well, Carl would have been spinning in his fictional grave on Monday night.
Because, once again, the Jets killed all of us. Maybe not literally as they did to Carl in Curb, but certainly mentally and spiritually. As they’ve been doing for our entire lives.
I feel like Carl right now.
Maybe we were foolish to believe that Aaron Rodgers could ever be enough to break the generational curse that seems to have shackled the Jets for decades now.
Maybe we are just doomed to have our hearts broken by this franchise over and over and over and over again…
Believe it not, the ‘Confession of a Suffering Jets Fan’ was actually born before Monday night’s crushing blow.
With this site dedicated to covering Baseball, I thought it would be a cool and unique opportunity to write about the Jets from the perspective of a fan. Hence the name of the column. Suffering doesn’t even do it justice when it comes to detailing the horrors of supporting this team. And, hey, my life sentence has been a hell of a lot shorter than most Jets fans I know.
I truly do not know how you have survived this long…
Anyway, as I was saying. Sometimes it can be forgotten that sports writers are just like everybody else, we’re fans first and foremost.
I mean, that’s why we got into this wonderful business in the first place, because of our undying love and passion for sports.
Of course, we have to tone that fandom down for the sake of being professional in our careers, and I’ve certainly had to do that with this site and when it comes to my love of the Mets.
But, again, because this website is driven by Baseball, I have a great opportunity to engage in a therapy session every single week by venting about the Jets. And, to be honest, I feel like there’s going to be a hell of a lot of venting this year with Rodgers out of the picture for now.
I can just be a fan when it comes to the Jets and football, and I’m really excited to just let loose every single week and not have to worry about being neutral. This weekly diary will allow me to be just a fan.
And I’ve missed that.
I just want to be a passionate, raving, irrational fan who can chop it up with other fans and either rejoice or commiserate every Sunday, Monday or Thursday night.
That’s all I want.
And this feature will allow me to do just that.
In terms of the format, I plan to release this weekly a day or two after the Jets have played. There will be a Part 2 to this edition on Sunday just because I wanted to map out the thought process behind this whole thing first.
We’ll have some fun with this and I’ll play around with the layout and certain sections as we go. If you have any ideas, feel free to let me know in the comment section below or reach out to me over at Twitter.
Maybe we’ll have a ‘boneheaded play of the week’ section dedicated to Zach Wilson. I’m kidding on the square here. I hope I’m wrong about Wilson, and I hope he has a great season. But I’m not confident in the slightest.
And I’ve had sleepless nights about Wilson going up against that formidable, vaunted Cowboys D on Sunday. I mean, I think Daniel Jones is better than Wilson, yet look at what Dallas did to the Giants QB on Sunday.
God only knows what they are going to do to Wilson and that heart attack of an O-Line…
I think it could be a long, long year for Jets fans…
So, on that note, I hope you join me on this ride and tune in every week for the latest edition of Confessions of a Suffering Jets Fan!
See you all Sunday.
